This blog is about the book 'CONFIDENTIAL: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.' The biography of a legendary Hollywood producer.
Cover image: Milchan embraces Arafat. A James Bond fan, Arafat thought he was embracing a film producer who had just introduced him to one of the original Bond's, Sean Connery. Arafat never realized he was schmoozing a top Israeli intelligence asset. - SCROLL DOWN:

As Leone began casting, Milchan rented an apartment in New
York, on 48thStreet between
2nd and 3rd, right next door to legendary actress Katharine Hepburn.
They considered hundreds of actors for the film’s various parts, which was a
long and difficult process in itself. Early in 1981, Brooke Shields was offered the role of
Deborah Gelly after Sergio Leone had seen The Blue Lagoon, claiming that
she had the potential to play a mature character. However, a writers’ strike
delayed the project, and Shields withdrew before auditions began.

As word spread of the production, Leone
personally received numerous phone calls from top talents, such as Warren Beatty. As he did with most of the others, Leone turned him down
cold. “He’s a hairdresser, for Christ’s sake,” Leone said to Milchan. “But he only played the role of a hairdresser in Shampoo,”Milchan said, in hopes of changing Leone’s mind. “No, no, he is a hairdresser,” Leone insisted. A few days later he received a call from Clint Eastwood. “No,
no, I have already cast him in three movies. I need something fresh.”

Arnon Milchan with the "Hair Dresser" Warren Beatty.Close friend Meir Tepper is in the middle

If there was one person Sergio Leone wanted for the film, it
was Robert De Niro, who had played the lead in Milchan’s The King of Comedy. According to Milchan, it was not easy to
convince De Niro to read the long script, but finally the actor claimed that he’d
read through the entire manuscript and agreed to meet with Leone.

The meeting was scheduled at the Mayflower Hotel in New York
City. Leone, obese at the time, was dressed in a gigantic robe as they convened
in a top-floor suite that Milchan had reserved for the meeting. Leone and De
Niro were to talk one-on-one as Milchan waited for a call in a separate room. When the phone finally rang, it was De Niro whispering on the
other end; “Arnon, I need to talk with you.” Milchan rushed over to De Niro’s room and knocked on the
door. De Niro said, “I can’t do the movie.” Milchan was stunned. “Why not?” De Niro led Milchan to the bathroom and pointed at the
toilet. Milchan was puzzled.

“Can’t you see that he pissed all over my toilet seat?” he
asked in that tone that only Robert De Niro can do. The seat was indeed soiled. “Come on, Robert, he didn't do
that on purpose. He’s fat, he didn't see.”

“No way, Arnon, he did this on purpose.” De Niro implied that
it was a power game, a marking of territory of sorts, showing who’s the boss. Milchan calmed him down, and ultimately De Niro was cast in
the lead role as the Jewish gangster David Aaronson.

The highly sought-after lead female role was not filled until
shortly before filming began. Milchan had his heart set on Elizabeth McGovern, who, while
studying at Julliard at the age of twenty, had been offered a part in her
first movie, Ordinary People, in the role of the girlfriend of a
troubled teenager played by Timothy Hutton. It was Robert Redford’s first film as a director,
and it won four Oscars. The next year McGovern earned an Academy Award
nomination for best supporting actress for her portrayal of the early-twentieth-century
actress Evelyn Nesbit in the movie Ragtime, in which she had a
controversial and very lengthy nude scene. Out of the long list of star
actresses who sought the role, Elizabeth McGovern got it. She was seventeen
years Arnon’s junior – and his real life lover.

De Niro only later learned that
McGovern was
Milchan's girlfriend.

As Milchan remembered:

"There was a scene in the movie where De Niro was supposed
to rape Elizabeth McGovern in the back seat of a limousine, after she informs
him that she’s leaving and moving to Hollywood to realize her dream. A real
complicated scene. De Niro suddenly suggested that I should play the role of
the limousine driver. I reacted with skepticism. After all, I’m not an actor.
There were four pages of text in that scene; it was not inconsequential. In any
event, the idea caught on, and Sergio conducted a formal audition for me. After
that my skepticism suddenly disappeared and I found myself wanting to play the
role more than anything in my life. It was like catching a bug. It became my
lifetime ambition. Sergio, on the other hand, was not impressed and rejected my
participation. I, the producer and financier of the entire project, was
rejected! I was boiling. I was sure that everyone would come to me on their
hands and knees but I was treated like the lowest extra on the set. They
continued to do auditions for the part right in front of me and I was
completely frustrated.

Then I received a call: “We are ready to film
the scene, come on down.” But I was in Paris and the scene was to be filmed
that same night in Canada. “No problem,” they tell me on the phone. “Tickets
are waiting for you at the airport. There are three other candidates for the
role that are also being called in.” I was genuinely hurt by now, but I arrived
at the airport nonetheless. I couldn’t find my name listed in first class and
not in business class. Where did they put me? In coach, all the way at the back
next to the toilets!

I finally arrived in Canada and I went
straight to the set. It was like magic. Everything was lit up, and there they
were, God and his deputy, Leone and De Niro. Two personal friends who in this
case were both paid by me. I reached out to them warmly: “Sergio, Robert, here
I am!” They gave me a look as if I was the guy delivering the sandwiches, an
actor-wannabe, a rank amateur. They were focused like lasers on their tasks. I was
looking for direction. “You know this is my first role,” I mentioned to Leone,
who ignored me. De Niro turned to me and said, “Look, this movie is not about
you and it’s not about the limousine driver. It’s about my character. Remember
that.”

It
took thirteen takes to get the scene down. Leone literally showed De Niro how
to rape Elizabeth McGovern and asked De Niro to physically repeat his
instructions before filming commenced, and I couldn’t remember even once how to
open the limousine door. On take two I forgot to stop the limousine where I was
supposed to. In the meantime, De Niro was repeatedly “raping” my girlfriend in
the back seat, for thirteen takes! And you know Robert De Niro, a real actor;
every take was from the heart! He was totally committed to the realism of the
scene. And I was supposed to stop the limousine and ask Elizabeth, “Are you all
right?” as I exited the limousine, opened the door, and removed my hat. That’s
it.

Elizabeth McGovern after the rape scene in the limo.

In the end, they cut the scene down so much
that I was only left with that one line, “Are you all right?” And even after
that, Leone did not like the sound of my voice so he hired another actor to do
a voice-over. It was a completely humiliating experience, but it was
exhilarating at the same time."

Of course, Elizabeth McGovern is currently enjoying a new wave of success in her performance as Cora, the Countess of Grantham in the BBC/PBS smash hit, Downton Abbey.

NBC News on 'Confidential': "A movie tycoon whose life story itself is a Hollywood movie"

Media Contact Information

July 17, 2011: The New York Times Introduces 'Confidential' to the World: GROUND BREAKING.

Click on image for the full article.

Fox News: "This is a Deadly Serious Book"

Fox News and the New York Times agree on something. Click on the image for the full backstory to the writing of the book 'Confidential' as published by FoxNews.com

Fox News on the 'Confidential' story: "This is a Movie in Itself"

Additional recommended reading:

For a wider understanding of Israel's intelligence services beyond the story of one facinating man, the authors of 'Confidential' also recommend Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman's gripping book 'Spies Against Armageddon'. Click on the image to go to their Amazon page.

CNN on the 'Confidential' story: "Hollywood Execs Will Be Fighting to Get This to The Big Screen"

The Daily Beast on Confidential - The Downfall of a Top Aerospace Scientist

GUT WRENCHING: Arnon and Richard Kelly Smyth go shopping for nuke materials. Smyth is caught...escapes... and 16 years of fear and exile ensue. Click on image for the story.

'Confidential' Co-author Doron Interviews for CBS News:

Author-Signed & Personalized Copies of Confidential Available Only Here:

Contact the Authors of 'Confidential' at 202-440-3050.

Tablet Magazine: The Shocking Milchan-South African Saga

He may have produced '12 Years a Slave' as a measure of redemption, but before that he played a key, controversial and highly secret role in Aparthide South Africa. Click on image for the exclusive details.

Sky News: Arnon Milchan wishes he hadn't denied it.

Milchan's Spymaster Blumberg: "For years I carried a cyanide capsule in case I was caught"

The only known photo of Arnon Milchan's Israeli Intelligence Handler and Trainer (between 1965-1981), LAKAM Chief and Master Spy Benjamin Blumberg. "Milchan was a man I could work with". Click Image for the full story.

Richard (AKA Dr. Jon Schiller) and Emily Smyth, The Owners of 'Milco', a LAKAM Front Company

The fugitive couple who escaped to 16 years of exile in Malaga, Spain, after shipping nuclear weapons triggers (Krytrons) to their long-time business partner/LAKAM handler, Arnon Milchan. Smyth, who was caught, extradited and convicted in the case, blames Arnon Milchan for destroying his life. Click on image for the story.

Krytron - a nuclear trigger

Like in any movie production "It's always the little things that cause the most trouble" - Arnon Milchan

Urenco Nuclear Centrifuge Blueprints...

In the dead of night, Arnon Milchan secured the designs for advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment... click on image for details:

A Fall From Grace - The Smyth mobile home

Once he was one of the most important and respected aerospace engineers in America with a waterfront mansion and a yacht. Today he lives in a little mobile home next to the railroad tracks in Lompoc, CA. Photo by Joseph Gelman. The Authors visited Mr. Smyth at his home as part of the investigative process.

Jonathan Pollard - Also a LAKAM Operative, and also handled by Rafi Eitan in 1985....

Arrested only months after Richard Kelly Smyth fled into exile in 1985 to live as a fugitive on the lam. The Smyth incident/disappearance undoubtedly played a negative role in Pollard's disproportionately harsh treatment... as US authorities were looking at that point to "send a message". Few have understood the connection between the Smyth and Pollard cases, and the time-frame. Pollard still rots in Jail, going on 29 years now.

Top Mossad operative and LAKAM Chief who was forced to resign following the Pollard Affair. Years earlier, Rafi Eitan had personally captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eitan enjoys sculpting, and one of his sculptures sits in his friend Milchan's living room in his Malibu ocean-front mansion. Click Image for background on Rafi Eitan.

Arnon Milchan's $600,000,000 Art Collection

A less valuable sculpture by his friend Rafi Eitan sits on the living room table.

Arnon Milchan, Moshe Dayan and Leon Uris, the Author of Exodus.

It was Arnon Milchan who brokered the deal between Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon to create the Kadima Party

Arnon Milchan and French President Jacques Chirac

Standing alongside Milchan with blond short hair is Ase Thastrom, Milchan's former longtime lover who still lives in his Chateau in France, next door to the retired French President.

Peres, Milchan, Netanyahu

The Man in the Middle...in more ways than one

Arnon Milchan, Roman Polanski and Robert De Niro behind a 'Solidarity' sign in Poland

Milchan financed a production of 'Amadeus', the first Western cultural event held in Poland since before WWII. Polanski himself played the lead role. With the fall of Communisim in Poland, President Lech Walesa invited the trio for a Robert De Niro film festival that they organized.

Martin Scorsese directs Jerry Lewis in the 'King of Comedy' As Arnon Milchan looks on

Every Tabloid on the Planet Picks up on the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie 'Confidential' Scoop

The Authors didn't even consider it 'news' when Milchan described to them the behind-the-scenes story of the beginning of Angelina and Brad's relationship, and the break-up with Jennifer Aniston. Apperently the tabloids considered it huge news.

Arnon Milchan and Angelina Jolie

The Secrets of the 'Secret Agents' of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

The Authors of 'Confidential', Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman

Top-notch Investigative Journalism of the 'old school' kind. The stunning Investigation that brought a super-agent in from the cold.